Fake GenAI ads used to spread malware on social media

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 14/11/2023

Interest in GenAI tools is being used to spread malware on social media. Fraudsters created social media pages and ran ads that encouraged people to “download” Google’s GenAI tool Bard, which is a freely available and does not need to be downloaded. The ads instead led people to download malware that compromised their social media accounts, writes Google’s general counsel, Halimah DeLaine Prado, in a blog post. 

She says that since April, the company has filed roughly 300 takedowns orders related to this group of bad actors. The company has now taken legal action against fraudsters.

“We are seeking an order to stop the scammers from setting up domains like these and allow us to have them disabled with US domain registrars. If this is successful, it will serve as a deterrent and provide a clear mechanism for preventing similar scams in the future.”

She writes that Google has taken legal action also against companies that use the EU’s new Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to harm their business competitors by submitting thousands of fraudulent copyright notices.

“ In compliance with the DMCA, Google has a takedown process to handle legitimate complaints of copyright infringement.”

“Our lawsuit targets bad actors who set up dozens of Google accounts and used them to submit thousands of bogus copyright claims against their competitors. These fraudulent claims resulted in removal of over 100,000 businesses’ websites, costing them millions of dollars and thousands of hours in lost employee time.”

“We hope our lawsuit will not only put an end to this activity, but also deter others and raise awareness of the harm that fraudulent takedowns can have on small businesses across the country.”